Straighten Your Crown

(first published on sarahlunsford.com)

Straighten your crown they said.

So, you push it back up on your head, metaphorically speaking, of course, and it slides sideways again, and again, and again while you’re always pushing it back. Until you get tired and take it off, looking at it for the very first time.

The problem with looking at the crown is you actually see it. You see that it may not reflect you at all. It reflects a version of you that others want you to be. Sparkly. Brilliant. Beautiful. Bright. All the things they value, but what if you don’t value those things at all? Or, you just value them in a different way? So, they look different from what everyone around you is trying to put on your head, instead of reflecting who you really are.

That’s the great rub in all of this, this trying to fit something on us that doesn’t fit after all, that will no doubt cause some sort of wounding inside of us. The difference between who we are and who others think we’re supposed to be.

What I’ve found is the closer we get to the God that sits with us in the shadows, the closer we learn who we are and we see how ill-fitting the crown is.

I prefer darker things. Not horrible, ugly dark things, but the things that move carefully in the shadows and see everything around them. The beauty that is locked in a struggle with itself because it isn’t socially acceptable. The fine line between darkness and light where most of us actually live.

The place where the thread of light runs through the smoky darkness of people’s souls.

The people who have crowns in that world don’t have crowns of gold and brilliant white diamonds, but of titanium and rubies, silver and sapphire’s, stainless steel and emeralds. Their crowns are hard won, woven and bent in heat and set in freezing temperatures.

Their crowns fit, no balancing or pushing back required. Just a determined stubbornness to not let anyone else define them, and, the perseverance to allow themselves to grow in the shadows in the presence of their God.

Thou shalt also be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Isaiah 62:3

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How Does God Love Us?

Do you ever think about the words used by different generations? Sometimes I do.

What words roll around your mind when you think about God?
(Photo by Inga Munster Cotton)

Words, words, words, words

There are times when my mind takes flight over the undulating terrain of words throughout time. This is usually when I probably should be writing something for work. And, although the argument can be made that sitting and thinking about words is part of my creative process, in reality it probably has nothing to do with it, but should have a lot to do with it.

Either way, whether those words end up in my stories or not, my mind flies over to them,  before wandering over them slowly. What they sound like. What they look like. What they mean. Who says them. And a whole lot more.

I turn them over in my mind, and they’re  like those little wooden blocks that children make towers to tomorrow out of before they all come crashing down around them, causing squeals of laughter, or tears of frustration and remorse. I guess you can say that I love words, and none so much as the common.

What is fierce?

Today the word ‘fierce’ came to mind. As I turned it over and over, looking for its equivalent in today’s world, ‘sick’ came to mind, along with its predecessors, ‘cool’ and ‘awesome’, along with the almost unforgettable qualifier ‘totally’.

‘Totally fierce’ tumbled around my mind for a while, and with its implications of total abandon, protection and uninhibited passion behind it, I found I really liked the sound of it.

Is fierce bad, or good?

Fierce is an interesting word because it can be either positive or negative, depending on what side of the fence you are standing. I would think most people would look at it in its most basic definition of  being, “Extremely severe or violent; terrible” which sounds pretty bad, but it is also defined as, “Extremely intense or ardent” ( both definitions come from the free dictionary.

No gray area with God

So, I got to thinking that this is exactly how God is. Depending on where you stand with Him, He is either the first or second definition. He’s definitely not anywhere in between. There is no gray area with God. He either seems fierce or extremely severe and terrible if you aren’t in relationship with Him through Jesus/Yeshua, or He is fierce about how He feels for you as someone who knows Him through Jesus/Yeshua.

The fierce I AM

It is very clear throughout scripture that the great I Am is fierce. He isn’t some wishy-washy god who changes on a dime to accommodate some vision of what some man thinks He should be. He is who He is and He cannot be anything else. He is fiercely who He is, which can be a little frightening at times because we don’t ever encounter that with anyone but Him.

The intensity with which He feels, and the lengths He is willing to go to get through to us can be frightening. Then when we are in relationship with Him through His efforts, not our own, the ardent and passionate way He loves us can be frightening in its ferocity.

God is fiercely in love with you

At the end of the day, no matter how you slice it, when you really realize that you are in relationship with the fierce One who created it all, including you, and that He is fiercely in love with you. There is no way to respond with anything but amazement, awe, and yes, sometimes even a little bit of fierceness ourselves.

“neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Romans 8:39

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